Nikolai
My wife was trying to kill me.
“Are you mad at me?” Ava murmurs, pressing her lips against the base of my throat. I bite back a groan, clenching my fist at my sides to keep from touching her. Her words are slow, and a bit slurred, reminding me that anything beyond this was Impossible.
She’s been like this since we got into the car. Her body partially draped over mine, warm and inviting, the scent of cherries mixed with the heat of her skin, making it impossible for me to think straight.
I know I should stop her at this point but what can I say? I’m a sucker for pain.
And my wife’s touch.
Her fingers glide across my chest, tracing invisible patterns across the skin where my shirt was unbuttoned. She looks up at me from beneath her lashes and it takes me a second to process that her hand is moving until it dips and brushes the waistband of my slacks.
I grab hold of her wrist, stopping her before she can go any lower. My fingers tighten around her wrist just enough to serve as a warning.
She lifts her head, her lips pulling into a pout as she stares up at me. Streetlights stream in through the car window highlighting her face.
“Nyet” (No) I respond, gently placing her hand back in her lap. Her eyes narrow and she drops her gaze to where my thumb was stroking her wrist.
“Are you mad at Tatiana then?”
“She put you in danger, Solnyshko”
As much as I valued Tatiana as a friend, I couldn’t ignore the fact that her actions had put my wife at risk.
“She didn’t. I was the one who left the party because I got sick of Faina picking me” She clamps her mouth shut almost immediately after the words leave her mouth like she’d said something wrong.
A muscle in my jaw twitches, “Faina was picking on you?”
Her lips thin and her silence only heightens the unease her words bring. I grasp her chin, forcing her eyes to meet me.
“Otvet’te mne” (Answer me)
Biting her bottom lip, she nods, slowly.
“Why didn’t you tell me you and her were in love?”
In love? With Faina? The words would have made me laugh if not for the fact that I was grabbing with my self-control. Sure, Faina and I shared a fling, but that was years ago. It had barely lasted long enough for either of us to call it more than it truly was.
Lust.
I was grieving and she was infatuated with me. I’m not proud to admit but when she offered herself a formidable distraction to help me through my pain, I accepted. She had just gotten out of a relationship and we both agreed that neither one of us was ready for the complexities a relationship brought. Her father was very much interested in marrying one of his daughters off to me, and if he had known about our little arrangement, I had no doubt in my mind that he would’ve roped me into an engagement with her. Something neither one of us wanted.
As much as I would like to say that our arrangement was mutually beneficial, along the line I noticed that Faina wanted more out of it than I was willing to give.
So I called it off. It didn’t end well. She tried to shoot me, but unfortunately for her, she’s a terrible shot.
“I was never in love with her, Solnyshko,” I reply.
She stares at me, brown eyes peeled back, and for the first time, I see a side of her I’ve never seen before.
Jealousy.
“But she said..”
“Forget what she said,” I cut in gently, my tone firm but reassuring. I slip my hand into hers, bringing it to my lips and pressing a slow lingering to the back of it. Her skin feels warm beneath my lips.
She shivers, her gaze fixed on me as I slowly pull my lips away from her hand, leaving the heat of the moment lingering between us.
“I like it when you touch me.” She blurts out, surprising herself. Heat warms her face, and she starts to pull away, but I stop her, tightening my hold around her wrist.
“Don’t,” her gaze meets mine, wide-eyed and needy.
“Don’t hide away from telling me what you like.”
Her breath hitches as my words sink in, her vulnerability raw and exposed. I can see the uncertainty flickering in her eyes, but there’s something else there too-something fragile.
“I…” she starts, darting her tongue over her bottom lip. My gaze follows the pink flesh and my memory flutters to the kiss we shared in my office- the taste of her still vivid in my mind.
I remember the way I’d sucked on her tongue, how her breath had caught in her throat and how her body had melted into mine like she’d been waiting all her life for that kiss.
The memory goes straight to my groin and my cock hardens in my pants.
Der’mo (Shit)
“I liked it when you kissed me”
Oh, fuck.
She swallows, her gaze flicking to my mouth for the briefest of seconds before returning to my eyes. “I…I keep thinking about it, and I keep wanting it to happen again” Her cheeks flush at her confession, and she’s barely maintaining eye contact at this point.
“Yeah?”
Her bottom lip trembles, and she exhales slowly, nodding. “Yes”
The car horns in the background fade away leaving us to grapple with the electric charge her simple response leaves in the air.
Sexually charged energy bounces between the two of us, and before I realise it, my hand is on her thigh, draped over my leg.
This is wrong.
She’s not in her senses.
She doesn’t know what she’s saying.
She’s not in her fucking senses.
“I like it when you touch me”, she says, flicking her gaze to where my thumb was absent-mindedly tracing her thigh.
I swallow, my eyes never leaving hers as I ask, “What else do you like?”
I need to know what else I do that makes her tick. I craved the knowledge.
She’s nervous. I can tell by the way She hesitates, biting down on her bottom lip and I want nothing more than to replace her teeth with mine.
“Tell me”
Her breath hitches in her throat, and my gaze falls to her chest, rising and falling with each breath she draws, and I wonder if it’s a sign of her own racing heart.
“Tell me”, I whisper hoarsely, gripping her chin tightly. My voice is rougher and I can’t help the way my need seeps into the tiny space between us.
“I…” she starts then stops, her voice barely above a whisper. “I like it when you look at me like that”
My grip on her wrist lossens, only to slide it up the curve of her arm, cupping her jaw.
“And how do I look at you Solnyshko?”
My finger grazes her lips, and I feel the tremor that runs through her at the slight contact.
“Like you want me”
Fuck. Fuck.
I let out a harsh breath, “On a scale of one to ten, how high are you right now, Solnyshko?”
A pause and then, “Four”
Fuck it.
In an instant, I pull her into my lap, my hand gripping her thigh as I position her until she’s straddling my lap. She yelps when her head accidentally crashes with the roof of the car but the sound quickly turns to a moan when I slam my lips on hers.
She pulls away almost instantly, eyes wide “Nikolai, What are y…”
“Open your mouth, Solnyshko”, I interrupt demandingly, my voice sharp.
She hesitates, but just when I think she’s about to crawl off my lap and tell me what an awful mistake this is, she melts, and her lips are back on mine. Eager and unrestrained.
She clings to me as she needs me, fisting my shirt like I’m the only thing anchoring her to this earth, and I drown.
Fuck, do I drown.